Wednesday, April 1, 2015

On the topic of abortion, I find myself in an interesting position; my mother is a minister and is very religious, trickling her beliefs down onto me. Abortion is a constant controversial topic in America and when I found out that was the topic of the presentation I immediately thought of my previous debates and discussion on the topic. Of course I knew about Roe v Wade, but I never really knew the reason why Abortion was and still is the most controversial topic. Being from my religious background I immediately thought abortion is such a hot topic because of the religious implications. In Christianity abortion is viewed as a sin because when a woman aborts a child she is altering nature and God's plan for her. Coming into the presentation, I thought that a large portion of the talk would be on religion, but what surprised me was that the resistance to legalizing abortion didn't come only from religious believers but also from the government. In the reading it says that the reason for abortions constant debate is because it is the only topic that has so many disputes on biology, religion, and ethics. But when hearing about abortion, most people pick a side without hearing the full history and context of it. I am one of those people. Hearing about Roe v Wade briefly in an hour and a half U.S. History course is not nearly enough time to get student to understand the full magnitude of nit just the case, but the time period. When Mr. Doggett began to speak about what women would do in history to get out of pregnancy, I was shocked, forcing me to raise the question, why would a woman risk her life, infection, shame just to abort her pregnancy? Hearing more I then thought, what would her life be like if she had to have the child? Hearing more about abortion throughout the time, I found it surprising, shameful, and odd what women had to endure to get an abortion. Learning that women had to go to a board of doctors and plea their cases, excluding New Hampshire and Minnesota, just to get considered seemed like a major invasion of privacy. How could a board of doctors, comprised of men, determine whether a child would be a threat to a womans life? So much more should be considered than just immediate medical repercussions. Also what I found interesting, in the case the right of privacy was mentioned, which I, like many deem to be a legitimate, was that privacy was never specifically mentioned in the constitution. Doctors take an oath to uphold the safety of their patient and do no harm, so to have doctors essentially take an oath of privacy, then to say patients have no right to privacy is unjust and absurd. As Mr. Doggett spoke more, what he revealed about the Griswold V Connecticut case in 1965 and the prosecution of Griswold for trying to assist young women to prevent unplanned pregnancy just confused and angered me. This topic has so many different complications that make my stance on the topic even more difficult.
As of now knowing the implications of having a child I lean towards the side of pro-choice, but I believe that women should not be allowed to abort when the fetus becomes, biologically, a person able to live on its own. For now this is what I feel, but I am sure that with increasing technology this issue will grow even more complicated. All in all I'm glad I got to hear that presentation to learn about all the different stances taken in that case, I feel that not enough of this information is in circulation and i hope our school eventually makes in more of a requirement to know about such topics.